My up­com­ing films are very ex­cit­ing: Sid­harth

Sid­harth Mal­ho­tra re­cently be­came the first ever male ac­tor in India to en­dorse a makeup brand for women. He is the face of Myglamm, a Euro­pean makeup brand’s LIT col­lec­tion. The Aiyaary star spoke to Guardian 20 about this unique col­lab­o­ra­tion, his cur­rent state of mind as an ac­tor and his up­com­ing films.

Q. You have had your share of ups and downs. Has the ex­pe­ri­ence helped you grow as an ac­tor?

A. I think, yes. To an­swer this ques­tion there is so much to learn from suc­cess and fail­ure. I think act­ing is all about con­nect­ing with your in­ner self and that only comes with ex­pe­ri­ence or gets bet­ter with ex­pe­ri­ence. I would say there’s a sense of ma­tu­rity now whether it’s learn­ing things in my per­sonal life or pro­fes­sional life… There’s a dif­fer­ent sense of fo­cus, prepa­ra­tion, a dif­fer­ent sense of what I want to do and the kind of films I want to do. So yes, I think a lot has changed, or I would say that I have had a great learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Well, about grow­ing as an ac­tor, rather than me say­ing it, I am more ea­ger for peo­ple to see the change in my next re­leases. So look­ing for­ward to that.

Q. Do you think there ex­ists some se­cret for­mula for suc­cess when you are work­ing in the film in­dus­try? A. No clue! I don’t think so. But maybe be­ing thick skinned helps [laughs]… I think for me as some­one who has come to this in­dus­try and has been lucky enough to get a job here, the only thing that I feel I should keep do­ing is playing my part cor­rectly as an ac­tor. An ac­tor is a part of a project; he is not some­body who makes the project. You know, there are so many peo­ple in­volved, the direc­tion team, the writ­ers, the pro­duc­ers—so I think it’s a col­lab­o­ra­tive thing. It’s dif­fi­cult to pin­point one par­tic­u­lar mantra for suc­cess

Q. Jabariya Jodi fea­tures you in a very rus­tic avatar. Was it dif­fi­cult pulling that off since we have never seen you play such a char­ac­ter in the past? And was it fun for you to por­tray the role? A. I play a Bi­hari guy in the film. The lan­guage they speak is dif­fer­ent from what nor­mal Hindi is. So it was quite chal­leng­ing to learn a new lan­guage. I even coloured my hair and changed my over­all look for the film. So yes, it was fun to por­tray this char­ac­ter.

Q. How did the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Myglamm hap­pen?

A. I first thought that I have heard it wrong that a makeup brand wants to fea­ture me in their cam­paign. I mean, it’s one thing to be a met­ro­sex­ual man, but makeup is a dif­fer­ent thing al­to­gether. Then I got to know about the de­tails of #Teste­don­sid cam­paign and signed up as a will­ing guinea pig be­cause I’d any day sign up for a prod­uct that is not tested on an­i­mals. I think the colours rep­re­sent today’s young ladies who are con­fi­dent, strong, self-as­sured and not afraid to ex­press them­selves. It was a very new ex­pe­ri­ence for me. I think it’s been a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to see how much goes into women’s makeup, in the art of get­ting “ready”. In tech­ni­cal terms, there were so many makeup phrases and words that I had never heard of be­fore this cam­paign.

Q. In ad­di­tion to high­light­ing the brand’s cru­elty-free phi­los­o­phy, the cam­paign also in its own way tries to shat­ter a stereo­type that only women can wear makeup. Do you agree? A. Yes, in today’s gen­er­a­tion, makeup es­pe­cially is some­thing which is very per­sonal. It is also a form of ex­pres­sion, be it for a man or a woman. I think to each his or her own. And why not? It’s a norm that we have seen grow­ing up that only women wear makeup, but today you see men ex­per­i­ment­ing with their looks too, which I think is in­ter­est­ing. We all can ex­press our­selves with makeup and feel and look dif­fer­ent.

Q. What do you as a man who doesn’t use makeup much think about the LIT col­lec­tion?

A. I think the LIT col­lec­tion is “lit”. It’s for women who are con­fi­dent and who are sen­si­tive to an­i­mal cru­elty, for women who are self­made, who like to ex­press their moods and try dif­fer­ent looks. For me, it was a very fun cam­paign and also to know how much ef­fort goes into cre­at­ing makeup was in­ter­est­ing too. There are so many tech­niques when it comes to ap­ply­ing makeup, there’s so much you can do ac­cord­ing to your mood and oc­ca­sion. So yes, I thor­oughly en­joyed it.

Q. How much does in­ner beauty mat­ter to you, and are you a bet­ter judge of peo­ple now that you have been around in Bol­ly­wood for over five years?

A. I am all about in­ner beauty and that is some­thing you can’t take off or change, un­like your makeup. That is the true DNA you are born with. It’s the per­son­al­ity that all of us carry and that some­what trans­lates in the outer ap­pear­ance as well. So that’s some­thing very in­ter­est­ing and al­most like a turn on for me. And I don’t know about me be­ing a bet­ter judge. I feel that’s a learn­ing curve and ex­pe­ri­ence, though I’m hop­ing that I am bet­ter than what I was dur­ing Stu­dent of The Year.

Q. Sim­i­lar to col­lab­o­ra­tions like these, your up­com­ing movies also re­flect your cur­rent state of mind, which seems to be open to ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and try­ing out new things. So has that been hap­pen­ing con­sciously?

A. Yes, sim­i­lar to col­lab­o­ra­tions like these, my up­com­ing movies are also very ex­cit­ing. I am very ex­cited about my line-up whether its Jabariya Jodi where I play a Patna-based boy, which is com­pletely new for me or my cur­rent film which I am shoot­ing for, Mar­jawan, which is an ac­tion film/ in­tense love story; or my next film which is Sher Shah, a biopic of Cap­tain Vikram Ba­tra, who was a soldier for the In­dian Army. All three are com­pletely dif­fer­ent but are great emo­tional sto­ries to tell. I get to play var­i­ous shades as an ac­tor in these so I am su­per ex­cited. They are all meant for a larger au­di­ence and re­ally look­ing for­ward to my re­leases next year.

“I think act­ing is all about con­nect­ing with your in­ner self and that only comes with ex­pe­ri­ence or gets bet­ter with ex­pe­ri­ence. I would say there’s a sense of ma­tu­rity now whether it’s learn­ing things in my per­sonal life or pro­fes­sional life…”

Q. What is your favourite prod­uct to use from the skin­care and cos­met­ics range? A. Favourite prod­ucts would be a mois­turiser and a makeup re­mover be­cause of my work. If I would have to pick one, I would say a face wash, purely for re­mov­ing makeup and also for hy­giene. It’s some­thing that’s good for your skin, that’s about it and maybe a scrub to get off all the dry skin.